Demoted Astros Reliever Ken Giles Could Stand To Get Both His Mind And His Arm Right While In Fresno

It's been a rocky road for former Astros closer Ken Giles, whose lack of effectiveness and erratic behavior facilitated his demotion. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)

For all of their charisma and affability, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch are equally adept at playing things close to the vest, at establishing a unified stance on a controversial subject and adhering to it no matter how dubiously insistent their point of view.

Astros right-hander Ken Giles appeared to greet Hinch with an expletive when Hinch arrived at the mound to remove him from another ninth-inning meltdown on Tuesday night against the Oakland Athletics. Player-manager dustups are relatively commonplace and oftentimes unworthy of overanalysis, although organizations prefer to keep those confrontations behind clubhouse doors. When Giles failed to harness his emotions and cursed Hinch in full view of television cameras, he practically forced Luhnow and Hinch to address his behavior headlong.

They did not, despite direct prodding. The Astros optioned Giles to Triple-A Fresno less than 24 hours following his second emotional outburst between the mound and dugout this season. Giles infamously punched himself in the face after being removed from a game in which he surrendered a three-run home run to Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez on May 1 (both outings, coincidentally, were non-save situations in scoreless starts by right-hander Justin Verlander). When pressed as to what role Giles’ petulance played in his demotion, Luhnow and Hinch stuck to a pre-established script on crisis management that would have served John Schnatter well.

“What I’ll say about Ken is we need to get his pitching right,” said Hinch, who disclosed that he did not confront Giles about his in-game vulgarity. “He’s had an up-and-down season, he’s had signs of things that are good, he’s had some bad games, he’s had some meltdowns. We need to get him right; he’s not right. We’ve got to get him right mentally and physically to make sure he’s a good contributor to a pen.”

Said Luhnow: “He has not had the success up here this year that he’s had in the past or he’s capable of having, and we need to keep the Astros first and foremost as our priority winning games here. He needs to pitch, and right now pitching here he won’t get as much of an opportunity as he will in the minors.”

Luhnow and Hinch have a sturdy leg to stand on if they insist on framing Giles’ demotion as baseball-related only. Giles’ appearance against the Athletics marked his third this season where he has allowed at least three runs while failing to complete an inning of work. He recorded just one out in the aforementioned game with the Yankees and was tagged for all four runs of a 4-0 defeat after entering in a scoreless tie. Giles was the impetus behind the Cleveland Indians rallying from a five-run deficit in the ninth inning on May 27, posting a pitching line that mirrored the one against Oakland earlier this week: three hits, three earned runs, and no outs.

Giles is 12-for-12 in save opportunities but has recorded only two saves since June 1, essentially ceding the job to veteran right-hander Hector Rondon. His remaining numbers offer a bizarre mix of ineffectiveness and unfortunate luck, with Giles posting career-worst totals in ERA (4.99) and strikeout rate (24.0%). His FIP (2.25) is the best of his three seasons with the Astros while his ridiculous and seeming unsustainable .366 BABIP suggest that most every ball put in play against Giles has resulted in cataclysmic damage. His walk rate (2.3%) is the best by far in his career but the percentage of hard-hit balls against Giles (36.8) is a high-water mark.

Giles has experienced a slight decline in his four-seam fastball velocity, from 98.3 miles per hour in May to 97.0 miles per hour this month. Luhnow and Hinch insisted that Giles is healthy and that a lack of fastball movement and the flaccid spin rate on his slider are primary culprits.

Mechanics aside, the Astros can ill-afford Giles’ public tantrums. He has carried the burden of the cost of his acquisition from the Phillies on December 12, 2015, when Houston shipped five players to Philadelphia for Giles and teenage middle infield prospect Jonathan Arauz. Astros fans fully turned on Giles last postseason when he finished 0-2 with an 11.74 ERA and logged just 1 2/3 innings over seven World Series games. Shaky closers are easy targets for scrutiny, and Giles has been booed more at Minute Maid Park than anyone else on the roster. That takes a toll.

Still, Giles’ fits of self-flagellation and unbridled anger obliterated the tipping point. He was shipped to Fresno to reclaim confidence in his arm, but his mental rehabilitation is equally important, even if Astros management is reticent to directly address those frailties.

“It’s important for him to get himself right to where he’s directing all of his attention toward the hitter and all of his attention toward his job,” Hinch said. “He pitches with a lot of emotion, and when things are going well we love it; when things aren’t going well we have our concerns just because of the volatility of the end-of-the-game type stuff.”

Said Luhnow: “I think we want all of our players to channel (emotions better). It’s an emotional game and we want all of our players to channel their emotions in a productive manner. But beyond that, I’m not really going to comment on it.”

I have analyzed everything from preps to pros in Houston since the turn of the millennium, representing media entities large and small from the Houston Chronicle, FOX Sports Houston, CultureMap Houston, and The Sports Xchange. The written word is the method of choice, but ra...